Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Feeling for Rudolph

It's the time of year when Xmas carols start being sung. You either love them or hate them but I think, even if you love them, by the time Xmas comes around, you're ready to throttle someone every time you hear one.

This seems to be especially true for me seeing as we have a few Xmas shows coming up with the chorus, and we've been busy rehearsing our Xmas carols.

There's one carol that has always puzzled me. I don't understand why everyone thinks it's a great song. There seems to be a very bad message behind it.

The carol I'm talking about is Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Lyrics can be found here

Don't know what I'm talking about?

Well, here's this poor little reindeer who is picked on by the other reindeer for being different.
Poor Rudolph had a shiny nose. The song makes it worse by saying if YOU saw it, you'd laugh at him too! So it's saying his nose is so bad, you couldn't help but torment him about it. As if Rudolph had any control over his shiny glowing nose...

So the cruel reindeer laugh and call him names (honestly couldn't Santa have picked a better crew??)
That is, until that fateful foggy Xmas Eve when Santa came and singled out Rudolph."Hey Rudolph, I kind of like that thing you've got going in the middle of your face there, why don't you guide my sleigh tonight?"
So maybe Santa felt sorry for him, or maybe Santa wanted to piss the other reindeer off, or maybe Rudolph was picked for his sleigh guiding abilities.. either way, that night, he was the man.

It's the NEXT bit that really baffles me...THEN how the reindeer loved him... only THEN???? Only when Santa said "hey this dude is ok"?? There's no mention of the reindeer being repentant or of learning a lesson about bullying.. no, they only loved him because they were brown nosing Santa...
Bad, bad lesson in that!

If you ask me, Santa should have done away with them and picked a new crew and he probably should have interviewed for the sleigh guiding position and hired someone on merit and ability.

But that's the world we live in isn't it.

*******

I was challenged to come up with an alternate version of the song so here it is... set to the same tune of course!

You know Dasher and Dancer And Prancer and Vixen, Comet and Cupid And Donner and Blitzen. But do you recall The most famous reindeer of all?

Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer Had a very shiny nose And if you ever saw it You would say his beauty shows

All of the other reindeer Were mean and often called him names They never let poor Rudolph Play in any reindeer games

Then one foggy Christmas Eve Santa came to say You're shitting me with your bicker all night So Rudolph guide my sleigh tonight Then all the rest were jealous, And they seethed internally. Santa has gone and sacked them, And Rudolph will make history...